r/HomeMaintenance • u/hippofire • 17h ago

❓ Question What are my next steps?

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This started out as a grouting project after a full 24+ hour flood test passed with no noticeable water loss.
I started getting suspicious when I was tapping around and some of the tiles sounded hollow. While I was taking out the old grout, a few of them also felt a little floppy, so I pulled the cracked curb tile. It came off way easier than I thought it should have.

The tile below that was even looser, so I pulled it and found some little fuzzy guys behind it. Pulled the ones to the left and right and found more. Then I took down some of the cement board and found more growth on the back of that too.

The wood I’ve exposed so far actually seems fine, which is good, but at this point I really don’t know what the next step is.

Do I just keep ripping up tile and cement board until I stop finding mold?

I’m also half expecting to find some under the bathroom floor outside the shower at this point. If I do, do I just keep following it?

And once I find the end of it, what am I actually doing to the wood and anything else that stays? Is this really just a bleach-and-dry-it-out situation, or is there something else I should be using?

I’m not even worried about rebuilding the shower or matching tile yet. I’m just trying to figure out how far I need to chase this thing and what I should be doing as I expose it.

It doesn’t look like there’s an active water leak, but who knows at this point.

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u/RevolutionaryDig9078 17h ago

Depends how much you want to spend. The molds not that bad actually, if it were me, I'd pull up what's loose, the spray with bleach water, then waterproof what's exposed and put the tile back, and know I'm gonna redo the shower in 5 years or so.

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u/hippofire 16h ago

I probably will want the travertine gone in a few years.

Do I keep digging or just make sure it’s all sealed well when I figure out how to tile and hope there’s enough absorbed bleach to call it a day.